Word: factotum
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...seem to be little more than the kind of dotty ménage à cinq that Wodehouse might assemble on a bilious day: Adela Bastable, a large, dim, goodhearted spinster; her brother Bernard, a retired brigadier with a bad leg; Shorty, once a quartermaster sergeant, now a friend and factotum; George Zeyer, a bedridden history professor (Bernard's brother-in-law); and Marigold Pyke, a faded beauty who cutely refers to drinks as "drinkle-pinkles" and English pounds as "poundies," thus driving Bernard round the bend. Amis is also clearly at work on a mean microcosm for the sunset...
...premise that beneath the breast of the war horse beats the heart of a thoroughbred. The Barber ranks as a 19th century buffa masterpiece because its music is so innately ingratiating and so illustrative of both character and comic situation. Figaro's patter aria Largo al factotum ("Feeegaro! Feeegaro!") quickly defines him as one of the most likable hustlers in all opera. Rosina's Una voce poco fa is a song of such poise and bravura style as to remove all doubt that she will get her man, Count Almaviva...
...Caldwell's special gift to trust the music and take its humor seriously. Her gags never intrude on purely musical moments, but when they come they are fresh and funny. Figaro enters not from the wings but from-the audience, beginning the Largo al factotum at about row S. In the lesson scene Rosina hits a high C and the glass in Bartolo's hand shatters. During the Act II storm, Bartolo's hat and umbrella are swept skyward by the wind (on a wire, of course...
...interview with Miles he became infatuated with her and soon quit his job to live with Sarah and her husband, Playwright-Screenwriter Robert Bolt, in Surrey, England. Though his ostensible purpose was to write a book on Sarah, he made himself so useful that he became her business manager, factotum, and confidant...
...theatrical memories is of being mesmerized by Orson Welles playing in Julius Caesar at the Mercury Theater. After graduating from the University of Pennsylvania with a B.A. in English in 1948, he so impressed Director George Abbott with his enthusiasm that he was hired as a "call boy," the factotum who tells actors when they are to go onstage. Then, as now, Prince was prone to nervousness, and first night out he lost his voice. After two years off for Army service, he was rehired in 1953 as an assistant stage manager of Abbott's hit Wonderful Town...